Whipping and Racing Horses, from the U.S. to Australia

Remember my post last week about horse racing and whips? Check out this Australian article about how the issue is playing out there: "Fair Crack of the Whip: A Racing Score Point." I'll warn you--it's frustrating. Even the "reforms" that the jockeys and industry are fighting against are nothing to cheer about from the horses' perspective.

They replaced the traditional leather whip with a padded persuader, banned jockeys from raising their whip-hands above the shoulder, and restricted the frequency with which they could hit horses.

Thus, the whip can't be used more than five times before the final 200 metres of a race. Only then, in the sprint to the finish, are jockeys allowed to use the whip on consecutive strides, to a maximum of three, followed by a pause for the horse to respond.

Talk about a weak set of rules. And "padded persuader"? Hello, euphemism! But even despite being weak, the rules still aren't being taken seriously:

On one thing, it seems, punters, animal-rights campaigners and jockeys, are agreed: the new rules appear unworkable.

The Sydney-based jockey Corey Brown, who painstakingly hones his riding technique on a mechanical horse Equicizer installed in his garage, concedes that in the heat of the final moments, ''you have a mental blind spot and revert to your old whipping style''.

Just how easily it happens - and just how workable the rules can be - was illustrated last weekend in the final race at Randwick.

Brown's mount, the favourite Melito, was beaten into second place by Deer Valley, whose jockey, Daniel Ganderton, was promptly suspended for six-meetings and fined $3900 for breaking the new whipping rules.

The horse, however, was not disqualified. The result stood. The connections of Deer Valley went home many thousands of dollars richer.

Lovely. See the horse racing section of Animals Australia's site for more on the racing issues there, as well as the Aussie site HorseRacingKills.org, hosted by Animal Liberation Victoria.